According to Merriam-Webster, the word spectral means “of or like a ghost.”

During the early years of Connecticut’s witch trials, witnesses were allowed to present spectral evidence, testifying that those accused of witchcraft appeared to them in a dream, or in the form of a specter or ghost, to scare, threaten or cause actual harm.

In the mid-1600s, however, at the urging of Gov. John Winthrop Jr. and a handful of other more open-minded legislators, Connecticut laws were revised so that no longer could just one person provide damning spectral evidence about being visited by a witch’s ghost, or attacked during a dream.

For a witchcraft conviction –a capital offense punishable by death–“a plurality of witnesses must testify to the same fact; and without such a plurality there can be no legal evidence in it,” Connecticut officials said. For spectral evidence to be admissible in a trial, at least two people would have to see the same spirit at the same time. As part of making this change, lawmakers cited the Bible passage John 8:17, which states, “It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.”

Several decades later when a witch panic rose in Salem, Mass., lawmakers there did not share Connecticut’s progressive views.

Urged by the Rev. Cotton Mather, Salem magistrates agreed to admit spectral evidence into their legal proceedings, resulting–as was later learned–in false testimonies, wrongful convictions and the tragic deaths of many innocent people.